April 24, 2008

I made it!

I have to admit, I was pretty nervous about traveling internationally alone. Alas, I have made it to Slovakia save and sound!The flight wasn't so bad. It was a little over eight hours, and I sat next to a young Ukrainian girl who had been living in Virginia for 6 months as a nanny. She was nice...until she fell asleep. First of all, she did not understand the concept of sharing armrests. She definitely took up as much territory as possible with her unbelievably bony arms. Normally I would have brushed this off and said, "Whatever," but the fact was: my little monitor/TV controller was inside this armrest that her jutting elbow was covering in such a permanent way. In my mind I did a lot of pros-and-cons weighing and logical deducing until I came to the conclusion that I simply had to tell her to move her arm. So I touched her arm gently and said ever so kindly, "Um, excuse me [insert nervous laughter]..."Nothing.I tried again.Nothing.So I shoved her arm of the armrest and pulled my controller out of the armrest in the blink of an eye.Of course, of course: this time she sits up and looks around blinking with an expression that says, "What just happened?"I just looked out the window, holding my controller possessively to my chest.

Thanks to this initiative, I was able to watch Enchanted and Atonement. My advice? Skip out on Atonement. It was so sappy and depressing that I wanted to vomit all over Ukraine.It was one of those movies that is so obviously, as every instant in the movie, trying to outdo the last moments depressing-ness. And in the end, it succeeds. It even tries to trick you into thinking that there's a happy ending, and then they inform you that what they just showed you was not how it really ended. Really, they both die in the end. And I don't care that I just ruined it for you. Don't watch it.

Yesterday, my first day in Slovakia is sort of a blur. I was an emotional wreck inside (and sometimes outside) from actually seeing and feeling my family and missing my husband all at once. I was exhausted, I tell you. And I refused to take a nap because I didn't want this whole jet lag thing to last any longer than it has to. So, after being awake for about 26 hours straight, I went to bed at 9:30 or so and woke up around 1:00 PM Slovakia time. That's a lot of sleep!Today my family is all living their normal lives here, and I was left here, instructed to blog and take pictures. I can't post any pictures yet, though. I will post them when I get home.For now, I'm leaving you with some serious Slovakia love.

2 comments:

Yay you made it!!! I've been checking and checking to see when you'd blog. Glad to finally have somethingto read:)

I admire your drive to actually go to the lengths of actually pushing her elbow off of the arm rest. I know myself and I probably wouldn't even get to the point of being able to say "excuse me." I'd end up sitting there beign bored for 8 hours. I'm glad you didn't do that.

Tell your family I say hi!! I'm so happy for you that you get to be there:) Love you!